Don Le

Don Pham Le (born September 20, 1983) is an American filmmaker of Vietnamese descent, who started out dabbling in acting. He was featured as one of Hilary Swank's main students in the 2007 Paramount Pictures film, Freedom Writers.

He is also a notable photographer, whose work has been featured on Wired.com^[1] and CNN's The Screening Room,^[2] amongst other sites and publications. A collection of his work can be seen at his photo site, Don Le Studio, wedding studio Bliss Imagery, and his production company, Fusion3Media.

Film Production, 2008–2009

In 2008, he co-founded a production company, Northern Five Entertainment, and produced the original pilot episodes for an action web series called "The Resistance" series with director, Adrian Picardi, and producer Eric Ro. Under Northern Five, Le worked as Associate Producer for the music video "Makeup Smeared Eyes" for the band Automatic Love Letter^[3][4] and Sony Music Entertainment / Epic Records. Its lead singer Juliet Simms is the runner up on the second season of the popular NBC singing show competition, The Voice (U.S.).^[5]

Capping off 2009, he produced a music video for a song called "A Soldier Never Dies", a track dedicated to fallen marine Anthony Hector Vargas.^[6] The track for rapper Invincible, featuring Grammy-nominated R&B artist Jon B. (of Tupac Shakur's "R U Still Down?" and "Babyface"'s "Someone to Love")^[7] and producer Battlecat (who produced songs for Xzibit, Snoop Dogg, The Game). The video was directed by Paolo Ongkeko and starred rising Hispanic actor Sonny Ayon.^[8] Currently, Le is focused on a new production company specializing in videography and photography for film, TV, commercials, and music videos. He also recently started a wedding production company called Bliss Imagery that focuses on traditional and photojournalistic videography and photography for engaged/soon-to-be wedded couples.

Le's video work on Neuromarketing was featured on CNN's The Screening Room (the intro was co-directed by Le and nationally televised),^[9] Wired.com,^[1] and Mental Floss.com.^[10] The clips were produced by horror film producer, Peter Katz. He has also produced alongside Eric Ro on the reality docu project for DJ Shy's "Beauty & The Beats".^[11]

The Future, 2010 – 2012

In 2010, under the Teddy Zee Productions banner, Le directed and produced a series of charity PSA videos alongside Teddy Zee (Hitch (film) / Pursuit of Happyness), Adrian Zaw, George Wang, and APEX founder Stephen Liu.^[12] He directed the 20+ clips that featured Asian American celebrities like John Cho, Sandra Oh, Kaba Modern Legacy, Justin Chon, David Choi, and 100+ talents in a campaign to win $1 million for the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF).^[13][14] The charity ended up in the top 20 out of 100 charities competing for the top prize, and ended up creating awareness for the widespread but generally unspoken issues of sexual assault and domestic violence.^[15] |^[16] |^[17] |^[18] In September 2010, he produced videos for the first ever AAPI Rock the Vote 2010 campaign with Teddy Zee, George Wang, and Adrian Zaw.^[19]

Currently, the new incarnation of “The Resistance”, which Le served as Associate Producer, is debuted on October 4, 2010, on the SyFy channel as a one hour television pilot, and was released afterward in its original 8 episodic form on iTunes, Xbox Live, Amazon, Hulu and the PlayStation Network.^[20] What originally began its origin as a low budget web series with 4 short online teasers featured on YouTube became an actual fully realized webseries with a budget in the low to mid six-figure range.^[21][22] The series features actors Adrian Zaw as Syrus Primoris and Katrina Law as Lana.^[23][24] Before filming the actual web show, the series was picked up by Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures and Starz Media, after executives at Starz and Ghost House viewed "The Resistance" teasers online. "The Resistance" is directed by Adrian Picardi, Executive Produced by Ben Ketai, Scott Bayless, Scott Rogers, with producers Aaron Lam, Eric Ro, and Associate Producer Don Le.^[25][26][27] The pilot will reportedly make history, as it's the first time a series created originally for the web will first premiere on television.^[28][29]

Le also recently wrapped production on a music video with superhot viral video director Ross Ching^[30] (of Kina Grannis' "Valentine" music video fame)^[31] and YouTube musician Clara Chung to create an inspiring video set in a world filled with bubbles.^{[32][33][34][35]} As of October 2010, Le completed an action-oriented project with director Ross Ching and fellow producer George Wang, starring Harry Shum, Jr., Stephen "tWitch" Boss (winner of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (season 4), and Katrina Law (Spartacus: Blood and Sand, The Resistance). The project released January 10, 2011, and is set to be part of a trilogy of short films including a prequel and sequel. "3 Minutes" has received nationwide coverage from the official Star Wars site,^[36] Wired.com,^[37] and Gizmodo,^[38] as well as the New York Post,^[39] Seventeen Magazine,^[40] Audrey Magazine,^[41][42][43] and Hyphen Magazine.^[44] It was also won the coveted slot of Vimeo's Staff Pick of the Day on its debut day, netting well over 60,000 views on the site within the first 24 hours.^[45] Currently, the short film has been viewed by well over 1,000,000 on both YouTube and Vimeo cumulatively.

In mid 2011, Le produced a series of 3 short comedic sketches with the world-renowned Wong Fu Productions^[46] starring Harry Shum Jr., Tyler Shields, famed photographer, co-starred as a Mugger in one of the spots.^[47][48] Le produced Clara Chung's 3rd music video, "The Camel Song" with director Ross Ching. The video featured YouTube's highest subscribed personality, Nigahiga, as her love interest.^[49][50] Afterwards, he also completed another Ching-directed music video for the tearjerker ballad, "Without You", with popular YouTube artist AJ Rafael. The video has so far amassed well over 1 million views.^[51] Le is wrapping up a busy 2011 with 3 more music videos to come with director Ross Ching, including producing duties with viral musicians Kina Grannis, Jason Chen and "Missing Piece"^[52] with artist David Choi. The latter video starred Ellen Wong (Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.^[53] He also produced a short film with George Wang for the LXD which featured prominently on Fox's Glee 2011 concert tour. The short was showcased in front of the concert itself before every show and was sponsored by Chevy.^[54]

Kicking off 2012, Le, alongside Peter Katz, produced "Already Gone", a short film directed by Ching and starring Shawn Ashmore (X-Men trilogy) and Harry Shum Jr.. The short made its world debut on Wired.com^[55] and featured on the front page of Mashable.^[56] The objective is to eventually turn the project into a feature film. The short was one of the top finalists at the first ever Shot on RED Film Festival in 2012.^[57]

Le also made his directing debut with a fashion film encompassing the world of swimming and beauty, centrally focused on 2008 and 2012 Olympian Chloe Sutton, and her career highlights.^[58] He also directed his first ever concert video for global music superstar Dev (the singles Far East Movement's "Like a G6", "Naked", "In The Dark", and "Bass Down Low") of the label IndiePop (The Cataracs, Yuna). He produced the concert video alongside Tonaci Tran of RED, who also served as Director of Photography on the project.^[59] Capping off the year, Le produced a conspiracy thriller-comedic short directed by Ching,^[60] starring YouTube giants KevJumba and David So.

Present Day, 2013-2014

In January 2013, Le produced a music video for rising music superstar Tiffany Alvord entitled "So Alive", which received coverage from Ryan Seacrest's official site.^[61] He also served as Associate Producer on a viral video that was executive produced by Ashton Kutcher, with director Ross Ching called "Top 10 Ways to Break a Heart" for Kutcher's Thrash Lab.^[62]

Towards the tail end of 2013, Le produced a music video titled "GTFO" for one of the most famous YouTube personalities, Ryan Higa. He also commenced producing duties for segment "A" for the feature film anthology series, "The ABCs of Death 2", for director E.L. Katz of Cheap Thrills (film) fame.^[63] The sequel to "ABC's" will be released theatrically in Halloween 2014 by the fastest rising theater chain in the US, Alamo Drafthouse. Le also served as production manager for Carrie Underwood's music video "Something in the Water", the debut single off her newest 2014 album.

Currently, Le produces under his production company, Fusion3Media, and has a slate of productions in development including a feature films, TV shows, ad campaigns, viral clips, and various other properties. He also owns a photo studio, Don P Le Studio (photographing celebrities such as Olympians Kaitlin Sandeno, Chloe Sutton, and the UFC's Fabrício Werdum, as well as a wedding studio, Bliss Imagery.

References